Two Point Hospital Gets A Clean Bill Of Health! – Review

Two Point Hospital Yesterday, a game released that I had (literally) been waiting over 20 years for. Yes, Two Point Hospital, the spiritual successor to Theme Hospital had finally landed. Personally, I had a massive amount of interest in this game. Since I bought the original (big box) copy of Theme Hospital in 1997, I have found myself regularly returning to the game. It's no exaggeration to say that I've probably clocked up at least 500 hours in this game, probably more! As such, out of everyone out there, I'm certainly one of those in the top-tier of demanding a lot from Two Point Hospital. Given that it has been dubbed a spiritual successor, in my eyes, this game has a massive task ahead of itself to live up to my expectations. Yes, I freely admit now! My standards for this game are overly lofty! So, how does it do? Well, put simply, I give Two Point Hospital a clean bill of health! First Impressions Initially, right off the bat, anyone who has played Theme Hospital (henceforth referred to as TH) will find themselves in familiar ground. The game has made a very deliberate effort to replicate much of its spiritual ancestor. There's a good reason for that too as TH did many things so exceptionally well! In terms of the layout, while it is slightly different, it is still familiar! In addition, the changes that have been made are more than intuitive for old-heads or newbies to this game. The game's tutorial can be skipped if you wish, but I would strongly recommend it for anyone new to the franchise. Even for someone as familiar with the original game, I still tried it out just to make sure I was fully familiar with what was new. While this game looked similar to TH there are enough changes that require a little adjustment. For example, nurses these days run the general diagnosis department! Well, I never! Humour! You'll very quickly learn that the game has attempted to replicate a lot of the British comedy from the original game. There's a lot of sarcasm, gallows humour and general cynicism worthy of someone who has watched a lot of Monty Python and Red Dwarf! You may even notice during the game that many of your patients have mildly amusing names! Right from the intro though, they get this exactly right. It's not overly done nor is it overly obnoxious. Like a well-written sit-com, the timing is perfect that it will, on more than one occasion, get a chuckle out of you. A great example of this is the 'Mock Star' condition which has patients resembling a well-known lead singer from a massive British band. If you don't know who this is, by the way, you're in desperate need of a musical education! Graphics & Presentation Two Point Hospital has a nice, clean, crisp, cartoon style presentation. In fairness, it's a smart move. Firstly, it fits in with the style of the game itself. It's fun, friendly and a little wacky! Secondly, it's a design choice which always seems to stand the test of time. In terms of the game's presentation, it's near faultless. Everything is pretty simple to navigate and it won't take you long to figure out what most of the controls do. If anything, the game is significantly more intuitive than it's predecessor. Particularly in terms of kitting out rooms to make them (or your hospital as a whole) a little fancier! In terms of tasks and jobs, they are largely given to you via pop-ups in the bottom right corner. These can be opened when you wish and are never intrusive to the game. I think the whole ethos of how the game works can be summed up quite simply. It has a significant amount of depth to it, but its simplistic design means that you never feel confused or baffled! The only aspect of the design that's lacking somewhat is the ability to copy and paste room designs. It does get a little frustrating, particularly early on in the game, to have to replicate your own room designs when you want 2-3 GP offices. Gameplay A major positive factor about this game is that even on launch, it seems exceptionally polished! Having played this for around 10 hours so far, I've not found a single glitch or error. Not one! It runs absolutely seamlessly even as my hospitals have gotten more and more complex. The career mode of the game as you progresses through several hospitals while you look to meet key achievements/requirements at them. While these are largely to grow and develop the hospital, the game is surprisingly not repetitive. Each level has specific requirements for you to meet. For example, one hospital might be money objective orientated while another might be staff training. Yes, the formula might, as a whole, be the same. They do, however, mix things up enough to stop this game becoming repetitive. In addition, you can also switch between many different hospitals at the same time to keep things varied for yourself. New Wacky Illnesses! Like TH, this name has a number of strange ailments to cure. These range from Mock Star to Lightheadedness and even Verbal Diarrhoea! Like TH, the names are amusing, but always with an ironic treatment. Two Point hospital has pushed the depth of the game, as a whole, to a new level. For example, staff members now work and interact on a much higher level. In addition, as you train them, they get more anxious for pay rises. In terms of TH, possibly the most frustrating aspect of the game was staff asking for pay increases. This hasn't really been fixed in Two Point, but it has been improved. Unlockables! During the game, the more you achieve the more 'K-points' you earn. These can be used to buy upgrades. These are nearly always just aesthetic improvements and as such do not form a necessary part of the game. You can't buy these through microtransactions either, but rest assured if your hospital works well, you'll have no trouble in getting nice items to adorn your lobby. Familiar Mechanics Return The game still has much of the original (and well-loved) aspects of TH. They really are too long to list, but I'll give you some of them in brief in bullets. Emergencies with timers to cure your patients! A nasal-voiced tannoy lady. Rats! - Yes, you can get your virtual shotgun out again! (Don't know if there's a secret rat level yet). Room designs. Even on top of all of this, there is still one more major factor. Death! Yes, death happens at your hospital and is surprisingly more common than in TH. Occasionally though, when a person dies in your hospital, they don't want to leave! You occasionally see corpses turn into ghosts who wander around scaring both your doctors, nurses, patients and generally being disruptive. Just make sure you have a handyman qualified to deal with them via their pocket dust-busters! Performance I ran the game using the following system specifications; Processor - Ryzen 5 1600X GPU - Nvidia 980TI RAM - 16GB @ 3200MHZ At a 1440p resolution, the game ran exceptionally well for me. Despite how big my hospital got, in over 10 hours of play I only had a framerate drop once! In terms of the game's design and coding, as I said earlier, I did not find a single fault aside from this minor blip. Even then, that might have been due to me taking screenshots. The game is exceptionally well polished and for a launch day title, that is (sadly) quite remarkable! How Will It Run On My System? The specifications for Two Point are remarkably low. As such, I wasn't surprised to see it run so well on my system, even at the slightly higher resolution settings. If you're curious yourself though, check out the specifications for it below! Final Thoughts Overall, Two Point Hospital had some rather huge shoes to step into. Despite this though, the game is almost as faultless as the original. Some may argue that while the game is a perfect homage to TH, they have also replicated some of the more annoying points. To a degree, that's true. I really cannot stress enough though just how high of a standard I placed on this game and just how well it met it! I came into Two Point Hospital, hoping, nay praying, that I wouldn't be disappointed and in truth, I can't fault it! It's damn near a perfect game! You can check out more details on the games official Steam Store page in the link here! Overview Secretly, I think a part of me wanted to find some fault with this. A way to justify my belief that Theme Hospital is one of the greatest games ever made from that golden-period in the mid-late 90's and nothing would ever come close again to touch it. Honestly, Two Point Hospital is a damn near perfect spiritual successor! Sure, the game has a few little niggles, but they are massively outweighed by the fun presentation. In just over 24-hours, I've already pumped in around 10-hours into this game. It's quite honestly the best thing I've played for ages and has instantly jumped onto my 'GOAT' list. A fun, wacky hospital simulator isn't going to be for everyone, but in terms of Two Point Hospital - This game has a clean bill of health as far as I'm concerned! Pros Excellent presentation. Intuitive for TH players, but more than friendly enough for newcomers. Funny! Humour is absolutely spot on! Complex mechanics easily managed by simple interfaces. Every bit the worthy successor to Theme Hospital Content is fantastic, but the design will easily allow for some future updates/DLC. Near perfect on launch day! (You can't say that often!) Cons The lack of a pre-designed room option is a bit of a miss. Particularly the inability to seemingly copy/paste room designs. It's not a major fault, but when you're making great rooms, it's frustrating having to repeat the design, step-by-step, again and again. EDIT - This has now been patched to allow for copy-paste rooms. In a final note, and it's a point I've struggled with from an ethical point to add, there is a pirated version of this game available. I do, however, implore you. BUY THIS LEGITIMATELY! I don't often say this, but this developer has done a fantastic job here and for a price of only £24.99 they haven't been greedy either. This developer deserves to be rewarded for their work! Please, buy this game from legitimate sources and hopefully, we'll see much more from them (and hopefully this franchise) in the future! - Please don't make me wait another 20 years!